Chapter 72 Why Are You Being So Considerate Toward Him?
Stella was confused by Miles’s demand, but she complied nonetheless. As soon as she approached him, he pulled her into an embrace before rubbing against her chest. “Do you know what it is that a man can’t stand?” he asked.
While assuming that Miles had yet to read the posts as he wasn’t in the office, Stella didn’t know the answer, so she shook her head in confusion.
“You know I can easily delete that post.” After lifting his head, Miles regarded her in all seriousness.
Stella was shaken by his revelation. “Have you read the post?” Since he told her he never saw the post that Zane published regarding how he seduced Stella, she assumed that he didn’t care much about gossip. Besides, he wasn’t even in the office.
Miles nodded.
“You deleting the post and me replying to it will have a totally different effect. Deleting it means you’re feeling guilty, which will lead to you being perceived as a third party in my marriage. I can’t let it come to that, so I replied to the post to reveal the truth.”
“Is it worth it to put yourself out there like that?” He followed up with another question.
“I didn’t think too much about the consequences.”
“While a woman needs a man who understands her, the opposite is true as well. I am extremely fortunate to have gotten myself one such woman.” He hugged her tightly.
Stella didn’t think much of the post she published, so she didn’t expect Miles to be so affected by it. All she felt was that he was being dramatic. That night, he was exceedingly gentle toward her when they had sex. She ended up dozing off while listening to his gentle words.
When she got back to work the next day, all of her colleagues were looking at her with a smile on their faces. Instinctively, she felt that something was off, as they shouldn’t be treating her in such a manner, considering she had described herself as such an immoral woman. As soon as she arrived at the design department, Lisa was also all smiles. Out of curiosity, she sent Lisa a text. ‘Why is everybody smiling at me?’
‘Go check the forum.’
The post was still on the forum when she checked it, but someone replied to it. ‘Miles had always been in love with Stella.’
The reply under the post suggested a dreamy romance that satisfied the women’s fantasy despite its relatively explicit content. Stella’s eyes moistened with tears upon reading the reply. However, she was still concerned over the fact that she didn’t know who stirred up such a scandal in the first place, and her first guess was Yulia.
She had her reasons to think so. All company websites, especially forums, were encrypted, so passwords were required to log into the site. Anybody who didn’t have legal access would have to crack the password, which would require a certain level of expertise, so it wasn’t something that an ordinary person could do.
Meanwhile, Yulia was working as a senior computer engineer in Meridian Trading. For her, cracking a firewall was a piece of cake, say less of cracking a password. Moreover, Yulia knew about Stella’s previous circumstances, whereas Stella knew that Yulia harbored feelings toward Miles.
However, Stella came to know soon after that Yulia wasn’t the one who did it, as Xavier came to her to confess his wrongdoings. They met up in a cafeteria. What happened surprised Stella, as she never expected Xavier, who seemed like a just person, to be capable of such petty deeds.
“Aren’t you curious?” Xavier was wearing a half smirk, to which she responded by shaking her head before quickly nodding it. Upon noting her reaction, he elaborated, “Why should I submit to my circumstances when my career was cut short because of Miles? I was expecting to reach a pinnacle after spending some time building myself up in Hollowcrest City, but I ended up losing everything, and it was all because of Miles Grant!” Xavier sneered.
Stella was rendered speechless by his reply. Men his age were generally focused on building their careers, but it was ruined by Miles, so she understood why he wanted revenge. However, she didn’t expect his revenge to be so petty. Therefore, she stood to leave with her bag in her hand.
“Don’t you want to know why I came to you?” Xavier’s voice came through from behind her.
She was startled. Indeed… It was such a petty and shameful misconduct, so he had no reason to confess it to me.
“Since Miles is investigating this incident, he’ll eventually find out who the perpetrator is. I hope that you’re willing to convince him to stop the investigation. If you accept the terms, I’ll make sure that Miss Yulia has a successful career; if you don’t, I’ll be constantly finding fault with Miss Yulia even if I know not how else to threaten you. If Miles ever found out the truth, I’ll be dead meat. Miss Stella, you know me well enough to know that I’ll only resort to such methods as I’m already out of options. I’m only thirty years old, so it’s still too early for me to meet such an end.” Xavier blurted everything out in a hurry, which made apparent to Stella just how nervous he was.
Stella understood that Xavier wasn’t a bad person to begin with. The reason he did what he did was because he was at his wit’s end. Besides, he didn’t do anything to her that day aside from escorting her upstairs and massaging her feet. Therefore, she relented. “I get it.”
She wasn’t thinking of helping Yulia out. All she thought of was that she couldn’t bear to see a young man like Xavier had his future ruined just like that. Just a few days ago, he was massaging her feet, but it would never happen ever again. The realization stirred up feelings of melancholy within her.
That night, Miles spent the night at Stella’s house. After a round of sex, she asked him, “I don’t know who was behind the posts, but I do have a speculation that I don’t know whether I should tell you.”
Stella had thought long and hard in order to come up with that solution. She had to blame everything on Yulia so that she could plead the case in her stead as her cousin, which would prevent Miles from diving any deeper. It was impossible to force Miles to stop the investigation, as he would definitely want to know her reasons, which she would not be able to provide. She was implicated by the posts on the forum, so it would be decidedly odd if she refused to investigate further.
“Speak up.” With his hand on his forehead, Miles seemed exhausted.
“Yulia was the one behind this. She already told me about it, so can you please stop the investigation? The results will be devastating to her. She’s my cousin after all. She knew what happened between us, so…” Stella sat down beside Miles and held his hand.
“Did she really confess everything to you?” Miles turned around to question Stella, to which she nodded in response. “Fine. We’ll leave it at there.”
Judging from his tone, she figured that he had decided to stop investigating, which came as a huge relief to her. Nothing happened during the next few days, nor did Xavier come to her, so Stella was right; Miles had stopped investigating. She didn’t need to do anything aside from begging for mercy in Yulia’s stead, which sufficed as a reason in and of itself for him to stop. However, she did spend quite some time coming up with the plan, so she couldn’t help but think that she needed to be smart in order to be with Miles.
A few days later, however, Miles managed to somehow find out about the truth, but she knew not how it came to light. That night, Miles went to her house. As soon as she saw him on the sofa when she got off work, she noticed that something about him felt off. Considering the time they had spent together, as well as how sensitive she was, she could detect the anomaly instantly.
“W-What’s wrong?” Stella asked stiffly after putting her bag down, as she knew he must have gotten some leverage against her.
“Did he speak to you about the matter?”
“Who?”
“Xavier Daniels.”
a mistake anywhere, so she wondered how he got to know, or if he was merely feeling her out. “N-No.” Despite that, her gaze was furtive.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
All of a sudden, he shot up from his seat to pinch her chin between his fingers. “How dare you.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“How dare you lie to me. I was also stupid enough to believe in that lie. How did you know I’d believe in you by making those claims? I bet you must have done a lot of research,” Miles snarked.
While observing him closely, Stella realized he was pissed off. “I didn’t do it on purpose. Xavier is a nice man with a bright future, so I don’t—” It wasn’t until then that she realized there was a gap of understanding between Miles and her. While he knew her well, she didn’t.
“Do you think I overdid it? Was I being unreasonable?” Miles pressed on while staring straight into her eyes.
After a long while, she nodded, as she thought he had indeed gone overboard. “Miles—” When she was about to say something to placate him, he began kissing her neck frantically. It was hectic and desperate, as if Stella was someone whom he couldn’t control. Since he couldn’t sway her feelings, he seemed to have decided to physically torture and conquer her.
“Miles, listen to me—” Her lips were sealed by a kiss before she could finish her sentence. Then, he took off her clothes to force himself inside her. “No, Miles! Xavier is a young man who has a bright future ahead of him, so it’s a p-pity that it was ruined because of you—” The ferocious pounding from behind made her stutter.
“Why are you being so considerate toward him?”
She felt as if the more she pleaded her case, the more ferocious he got, so she wound up biting on her bottom lip to shut herself up. In the end, he took off her soaked underwear, tossing it to the ground.
The experience was utterly humiliating to her. Despite the fact that she was telling the truth, she received such treatment just because she begged for Miles’ mercy in Xavier’s stead. Meanwhile, Miles already left, slamming the door behind him. She couldn’t help but think he was being intolerant, especially when it came to her relationship with other men.
Sitting down on the sofa, she mulled over her relationship with Miles. After a few incidents, she realized she never actually had a heart-to-heart talk with him, nor did they fully open themselves up to each other. Thus, she decided that was what she would do.
